Test practice and leadership

I spent four years growing from embedded tester into Test Practice Manager on a global programme. The job changed from testing my own slice to making sure every slice produced evidence people could trust.

These notes cover the tools of that job: a test strategy short enough to be read, a maturity matrix leadership uses in planning, quality goals Engineering will commit to, and mentoring that builds judgement instead of copies.

4 notes on test practice

P16 Oct 20267 min read
Embedding QA without hero culture
Teams that only ship when QA saves the day are already fragile. How I embed so that quality survives ordinary weeks, holidays and my leaving, even when I am the only tester.
P11 Sep 20267 min read
From functional tester to Test Practice Manager
How I went from executing cases on one slice to running the test practice on a global programme: what the role added, what it never replaced, and the traps on the way.
P126 Aug 20267 min read
A Quality Maturity Matrix leadership actually uses
Most QA maturity models become wallpaper. How I build a small matrix with Engineering and Product so each cell points at a planning decision and nobody chases a score.
P230 Jun 20267 min read
Mentoring QA without cloning yourself
Mentoring QA engineers by imitation creates dependency. I hand over the criteria behind my habits, so the judgement is still there when I am not in the room.